


A beating heart of stone

by beelisburger



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: During Timeskip (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), M/M, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Reunion, Spoilers for Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:47:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23358010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beelisburger/pseuds/beelisburger
Summary: Yuri's got Byleth, until he no longer does.But miracles can still happen, even after five years of war.
Relationships: Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc & My Unit | Byleth, Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 114





	A beating heart of stone

Yuri thought of himself as a rather stoic figure. He was never ruled by emotions, and nothing appeared on the surface that he did not allow for. He was a man difficult to surprise, and “taken aback” was rarely a phrase he would put next to his own name. 

And yet, he had to be honest enough towards himself to admit that _yes_ , seeing Byleth coming back from the darkness that swallowed him with a new colour palette and while swaying the Sword of the Creator really took him by surprise. 

When the professor disappeared, Yuri had despaired. He tried not to show it on his face, tried not to let the words strike him. He tried, probably for the first time in years, to have faith in something other than the Goddess. And it worked. Miraculously, marvelously and beautifully, it worked. Byleth came back. Against all odds, he came back, and Yuri was once again allowed to bask in his presence, fighting alongside him one time more. 

Then, they fought the Flame Emperor. Then they fought him again, except that this time it was Edelgard, and Yuri had promised himself that he would have made her pay for the hurt and the betrayal that he saw in his beloved professor’s eyes. 

At first, it felt like they won. Byleth himself had challenged and disarmed her, sending her axe right onto the ground. Yuri inflicted a deadly blow to a soldier with a sword and ran up to him, hoping (but hardly believing) that they could have celebrated. But of course, Edelgard was not the only foe they had to bring down一 no, she was but a mere decoy. The army had now surrounded the Garreg Mach, and the only thing left to do was fight or run. Of course, Yuri fought. He fought so much his arms started to ache and he lost sense of what was happening around him. He found himself on the other side of the Monastery, trying to protect other students. He wondered, briefly, in a precious moment left to breathe, about Byleth. He hoped he was all right. He must have been. 

He wasn’t. 

When Yuri emerged from the Abyss, days later, he found no professor waiting for him. The Garreg Mach was red, and Byleth was gone. 

*** 

For years he looked for him, expecting him to just cut through the membrane of reality itself with his sword and another hair colour. And every time, nothing happened. Two years after the battle of the Garreg Mach, Yuri wrote down Byleth’s name on his notebook. 

He had wept, alone in his room. Then he had gotten up, turning his back on the graveyard made of ink that followed him everywhere, and tried to move on. It felt impossible, at first. He knew that no matter how much time would pass, every part of him would miss the man that had stayed by his side. He would miss the vacuous stare, the soft voice that so rarely would leave Byleth’s lips. He would miss the lectures, and the dull simplicity of sharing a meal with other students or watching him catch every fish in the lake. They had only spent a year together, barely even that, but the handprint left on his heart would be a hard one to erase. 

Still, he had things to do. The war had taken a toll on the Abyss, and the destruction of the Garreg Mach only worsened their conditions. They had so many orphans to take care of, and the sick would die alone in their beds, medicines almost impossible to find. Every day, Yuri would exhaust himself trying to help them, putting the few recovery spells he knew to use, barely ever enough. Life was hard, but he kept going forward. When his mother left, he had to face it alone, her name now part of a list that seemed more endless than the war itself. 

Years went by. He survived. He made sure that everyone else around him at least had a chance to. Days were never easy, but they would always find some ways to lift their spirits. He would make up new songs to sing to the orphans, to help them sleep better while stroking their hair, giving them a safe haven within the chaos that ruled the land. Sometimes, he would leave the Abyss and walk around the Monastery, or what was left of it. After a while, memories had stopped hurting. He didn’t really know at which point in his life they stopped feeling like a fresh cut, and more like the phantom of it. He felt melancholic, but never enough to need the rain. He would walk next to what remained of Byleth’s room, recollecting moments of a life that no longer belonged to him. That had been brief, but worth so much. He would smile, fondness on his features. He had said goodbye to that a long time ago. 

And then, the unthinkable. 

He was seated, down in the Abyss. Around him, people were talking and screaming, and business was going on as usual. All things considered, it had started like nothing more but a regular day. Then he heard the voice, everybody did一 the guard was the first one to say it. Then it passed on to the librarian, then a soldier, and then the entire Abyss knew what was happening on the surface: after five years, on the day that in another life would have been of games and joy, a man with green hair and green eyes had made its way back to the now thousand years old Monastery, wielding a glowing sword. 

It felt impossible, until it did not. Byleth had come back once before. Yuri remembered it as if it had been but the week before. But then, he had only disappeared for an hour at most. It had been five years since he had seen him. Not even the professor could cheat death in such a way. 

_Couldn’t he?_

There was only one way for Yuri to know. Slowly, he got up, as if to make sure that he still could. He had walked the path towards the surface so many times he could do it in his sleep, but now every step felt heavy and uncertain. What if it truly was Byleth? And what if it was not? He could not stop asking himself those kind of question, even though he knew they would not have taken him anywhere. He had to see the truth with his own two eyes. 

The Monastery had never been this lively in the past five years. Soldiers carrying a blue banner were stationed everywhere. Merchants and commoners were helping them, cleaning and fixing whatever they could. Yuri looked around, unable to believe what was happening around him. It was a miracle, he thought. And there was only one person who could turn such a miracle into tangible reality. 

Byleth was sitting there, in the centre of the courtyard. He had a fish in his hands, a stray cat tentatively tasting it from his fingers. He looked as if he had never left the place. Around him everything had changed, now in ruins, but Byleth looked as if that was just another day at the Monastery. As if, any seconds from now, laughter would fill the air, students chatting their way to classes. For a moment, five years fell into oblivion. 

And then, everything hit him back. The loneliness, the pain, the worrying. Byleth was dead, it took him so long to accept it, to finally force himself to write his name on the book. Except that he was now standing there, the cat forgotten once he had spotted Yuri in the distance. They were looking at each other, unable to move. Words wouldn’t come out, but Yuri knew that they probably could never be enough for everything that he had to say. 

Then Byleth smiled at him, the same fondness that Yuri remembered from all those years ago, stored in his heart like the precious memory that it was, and the spell broke. 

Crossing the space that separated them took no more than mere seconds and, suddenly, they were in each other’s arms once again. 

‘You’re back.’ 

‘I’m back. I missed you.’ 

‘I一 missed you too.’ 

The sun was high over the Garreg Mach. For the first time in five years, Yuri felt like he could breathe again.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> I know this isn't really the canon first meeting that they got in-game, but let's just call it poetic license and ignore that tiny fact.  
> Usual disclaimer: english isn't my first language, I hope I fixed every possible mistake but something might have slipped! Feel free to let me know just in case :)  
> stay safe & hydrated & stan yurileth!  
> Title comes from "Natural" by Imagine Dragons.


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